Apple says it will not merge OS X and iOS

Sees a necessity for both

Apple is celebrating 30 years of the Mac, but what of its future? If you've been calling for Apple to merge OS X with iOS, it's not looking good.

Speaking in an interview with Macworld, Apple's senior VP of worldwide marketing, Phil Schiller, doused the flames of speculation that Apple might be moving towards runing one OS across its computer and mobile products.

"We don't waste time thinking, 'But it should be one [interface].' How do you make these [operating systems] merge together?' What a waste of energy that would be," he said.

"The reason OS X has a different interface than iOS isn't because one came after the other or because this one's old and this one's new," said Apple's senior vice president of Software Engineering, Craig Federighi.

"Instead, it's because using a mouse and keyboard just isn't the same as tapping with your finger."

Double vision

While Microsoft continues to bring its computer and mobile operating systems together, Apple believes that a total overlap would make for a bad user experience.

"You don't want to say the Mac became less good at being a Mac because someone tried to turn it into iOS. At the same time, you don't want to feel like iOS was designed by [one] company and Mac was designed by [a different] company, and they're different for reasons of lack of common vision," said Fedrighi.

"So you'll see them be the same where that makes sense, and you'll see them be different in those things that are critical to their success."